Looking for Eric Review
By David Kempler
Two Erics Are Better than One
"Looking for Eric" is a British film about footballers, or what we here in America refer to as soccer fans. Written by Paul Laverty and directed by Ken Loach, it caroms back and forth between humor and drama and this strategy - a difficult one to undertake - works.
Eric Bishop (Steve Evets) is as ordinary as can be. He's a middle-aged mailman who lives for soccer. Everything else is secondary. Eric shares his house with his two teenage stepsons (Gerard Kearns and Stefan Gumbs). Neither stepson seems destined for greatness. An ordinary life, like their father's, would be a godsend compared to the troubled directions they are headed in. Lily (Stephanie Bishop) is his estranged wife. He dumped her years earlier but there is still a degree of affinity between them. If only someone could walk into his life and help him turn it around.
Enter Eric Cantona, the former soccer star. While Cantona is a hallucination in the film, the real man is on-hand, playing himself. I'm usually not a big fan of hallucinated buddy stories but Loach pulls this one off by deftly managing all of the surrounding characters and story lines. Cantona, for his part, does a fine job, and rather than distracting the viewer, his character adds to the story.
What ultimately drives "Looking for Eric" is camaraderie between mates and a family pulling together when the bleakness is lurking nearby. When all hope is lost, it's the powerless combining forces against the powerful, in a scene that is absurd and close to hilarious. Yes, it's incredibly unrealistic, but we forgive Loach and everyone else concerned because it's fun and any time you can have fun watching a film, you're way ahead of the game.
